Hartley (pictured) is taking over as lead of the 30-strong team from Jean Malarkey, who is retiring.

In addition to Hartley’s promotion, Leigh Admirand is joining the tech and telecoms team as senior vice-president. Admirand was previously at Vision Critical and has also worked at Ipsos.

Melissa Sauter, president of Market Strategies, said: “Paul’s deep subject matter expertise and his hands-on approach to managing everything from large tracking studies and international qual to B2B research and new methodologies will serve our Tech  and Telecom clients extremely well.

“We owe Jean a huge debt of gratitude for forging a strong, unified team and growing the division significantly during her tenure, and we’re delighted that she is going to continue to serve the company as a senior consultant on a project basis.”